🇳🇱 Niels Koolen

Niels Koolen is an entry-level professional racing driver competing in Indy NXT for Chip Ganassi Racing, where he has started 40 times since 2024. Graded FIA Silver, he races open-wheel and prototype machinery across a range of national and international championships. His most extensive indexed record comes from Indy NXT; he has also raced Formula 2, Formula Regional European, the European Le Mans Series in the LMP2 prototype class, and GT World Challenge Europe.[1]

Koolen's career began in Italian F4 in 2022 with three starts. He moved to Formula Regional European the following year with Van Amersfoort Racing, completing a full season of 15 starts across 2023. A four-round Formula 2 campaign followed in 2024 alongside his Indy NXT debut, the same year he contested five rounds of European Le Mans Series with Duqueine Team and two GT World Challenge Europe events. Since 2024 his primary focus has been Indy NXT with Ganassi, where he remains active through the current season.[2]

Koolen races in fields that regularly mix amateurs and semi-professionals with graded professionals. In Indy NXT he faces regular opponents in Myles Rowe and Josh Pierson, both FIA Silver professionals with significant experience in open-wheel racing; he typically finishes behind both. He has finished ahead of established professionals Frederik Vesti, a Formula 2 regular with 53 starts in that series and Platinum grading, on three occasions, and Alex Lynn, the 2014 GP3 Series champion and a Platinum-graded driver with extensive experience across Formula 2, Formula 3 and the World Endurance Championship, twice.